Published In

Hunter Gatherer Research

Document Type

Citation

Publication Date

12-2017

Abstract

We consider the provocative idea of whether urbanism as a condition or process is visible in Northern Tsimshian archaeology. We define the condition of urbanism through four traits, each of which we associate with measurable variables. We explore changes in these across the study area in 100-year time bins over 6000 years. We also consider urbanism as a process that includes five kinds of relations. We consider these through six chronological stanzas visible in our metric data. While there is evidence of changes towards urbanism, we argue that urbanism as a condition is not evident in our data. We propose that urbanism involves a suite of causes and trajectories with multiple potential outcomes, not all of which achieve the threshold of cities.